One Mother’s Vaccination Journey

All of us are faced with some fairly hard decisions the instant we find ourselves pregnant. We are now acting on behalf of another.

What to do when this is not in a climate of open debate?
When there is less than informed consent available because of emotive and conflicting information?

I started this part of my website to show what one mother involved in natural healing, decided to do with her four children as her life unfolded. The first in the series is on vaccination as this seems to be fraught with partial information or blatant manipulation.

As a worker in the field of fertility/pregnancy I am often asked my opinion — and I hasten to add that this is just my opinion. Well-researched, and possibly different to other peoples’ attitudes, it is from the stand point of a natural therapist who thought deeply with each new baby /child, and who had the best interests of her own brood at heart — as we all do.

When my first son was a baby,(1977) the issue of vaccination did not really present too many problems. My husband was also an unorthodox thinker: not prone to following the crowd. His own health had been so messed about with that he was deeply distrustful of the medical model, and was intensely immersed in natural medicine and nature healing without intervention. (Hence I was exposed to acupuncture and started my course of lifelong learning).

I had been studying natural medicine and was well aware that a healthy body had a very functional immune system — a well, breastfeeding mother (as I was), supports the baby’s immune system till it gets stronger/older. I also did not visit the baby health nurse, as I figured my kid was well, and I didn’t visit doctors, as again, my baby was well.

This meant that I did not have voices in my head trying to bend my thinking. My family were all living in New Zealand and his were in Sydney whilst we were in Northern NSW, so these possible lines of conflict were not present. We as parents were the sole input into this debate. We were allowing our son to be as well as possible, limiting any possible exposure to allergens in his diet and going organic wherever possible. Studying acupuncture and naturopathy at the time we were letting him develop in his own time to his own blueprint — unfolding as designed, formed our style of parenting. This meant there was no room for injecting foreign substances.

I was aware that immune systems were inactive at birth, and that mother’s milk acted as an immune boost — mum being exposed to whatever baby was and her body instantly making what was necessary to support baby through the contact. Hence as I was breastfeeding solely until 8 months of age and then partially till 13 months, it was not an immediate concern.

What Goes in as Well as the Antigens/Antibodies?

Although aware of the vaccination schedule, I also knew that all vaccines were made from hen’s eggs. My sister had had an anaphylactic reaction when first introduced to eggs as a toddler. I was not sure what would happen to her nephew (my son), should he also be allergic. The culprit was in the bloodstream — she as a baby had the instinctive presence of mind to spit the egg out. What could a baby do about the contaminants in his bloodstream?

My son’s father had been a very allergic baby, with very bad eczema and asthma all his life, and again, it seemed a logical thought to protect his son until he was old enough to have been introduced to a wide variety of foods and hence foreign proteins. Leaving his immune system to develop independently, it may well be that the allergic responses would appear in their own time and be moderated by the fact that the process was not being forced.

I had noticed, as I hardly ever ate dairy products, that when I did have a small piece of cheese, he seemed to lose his breathing rhythm, and to also hold his breath. This was of concern to me as his father was still a very bad asthmatic. When breastfeeding, a mum is very close to her baby to hear his/her breathing. When I ate any dairy, I was aware that something was passing through my milk, as his breathing altered and he seemed to hold his breath a lot. This all lead me to being very cautious about injecting anything that could not be withdrawn from him.

BUT . . . In the background was also my awareness that I had got whooping cough at three months of age directly from the vaccination, and then my mother had got it from me. So no child of mine was going to be vaccinated with that particular antigen. At the time I did not know how very dangerous the whooping cough component of the triple antigen was. I also was aware that one of my cousins had died from a bad batch of vaccine, 20 years after having been vaccinated. A very unusual case, but it happened in my family; she was hospitalised for nearly two years as a degenerative neurological melt down took its toll of her body, and she was unable to care for herself, till she died of pneumonia.

Altogether this meant that vaccination was not necessarily a safe option in my eyes. I also knew that a classmate in high school was in an iron lung for years and still in a wheelchair, from contracting polio whilst wandering through Northern India as a lad. He had missed the vaccination campaigns when we were at school. So there WAS a point to it all — just used judiciously.

 ‘He is a Danger to the Other Children’

When Sean was 16 months old, he had been weaned off breast milk and was being trialled on different protein/calcium drinks as ordinary dairy was banned due to likely intolerances /health problems resulting from ingesting them. He got an ear infection that went bad and his ear drum burst. I took him to the emergency department of the children’s hospital. They would have admitted him and taken out his adenoids, but he was too ill. They were very unhappy about his unvaccinated status, as their rationale was that he was a danger to the vaccinated children.

What a leap of logic!!!! This is the very reason children get vaccinated, so they are supposedly safe!!!! My child was actually going to be exposed to their possibly live viral status (like my mother who caught whooping cough from my just-vaccinated state). I could not understand their position — what was the point in vaccinating if it did not confer protection? This is actually the point — it does not (confer protection), as most who catch the disease like whooping cough are fully vaccinated . . . so what else is happening?

Possibly this is EXACTLY why I did not vaccinate my children until their immune systems were working well themselves — vaccination shuts the normal process down. There was no mention of allergic children when I or when my son Sean was at school, as young children were not as shot full of toxic chemicals and at such a young age then, so their immune systems could work well.

He was able to fight off all sorts of bugs. When he was four years old, his day care mother had all her children with measles and he did not catch it (I wanted him to, but he was too well). Measles has about a 98% ‘strike’ rate — not all do contract it, just most. Later when he was a few years older, he did catch it. This was when I had started him eating more normally. When younger, he was on a moderated vegan macrobiotic diet which meant NO gluten, dairy, meat or sugar, or anything processed; without all that rubbish, his body was too pure to need to use the childhood diseases as a clean-out.

If this seems strange to the reader, I could have directed you to the great naturopathic online literature on the role of disease — you need to be ill/toxic to actually get sick in the first place — the garden needs to be ready for planting, otherwise the seedlings (virus/bacteria) do not find a home. A great place to start reading was www.vaccinationdebate.com and Hopewood Children. But it has been censored and no longer exists. So instead, please start your informed decison making withhttp://www.alternamoms.com/vac.html, and http://avn.org.au.

At that tender age, I took control and personally resolved his health issues with a combination of the antibiotics prescribed (nothing like having modern medicine when needed), and the use of the techniques and further reading I had been doing. So by the time we revisited a different hospital a week later, he was healed and there was no need for the surgical interventions. This totally validated my position on learning all I could to allow his body to be healed naturally, without the trauma that would have been visited upon him had he had the tonsils and adenoids SCRAPPED out as they had intended. Thirty-two years ago, mothers were NOT allowed to stay in the hospital, so the wee boy, who back then was sleeping with his mum, was to be admitted terrified and alone whilst they really messed with his body. Not a good recipe for healing, I would have thought.

He did not need their interventions and he went on to not have asthma (although had two attacks (see the relevant chapter), and within a week had perfectly healed with clear ears and throat. My thoughtful postponement till he had a more functional gut and immune system (when he was five and a half years old), happened after I had re-partnered. The new man was fairly particular about doing things according to mainstream thinking. Of course there must be a reason for all this urgency on vaccination — otherwise it would not be so . . .

So to keep the peace at home, Sean was vaccinated. And from then on had major learning issues at school. He was still tested as being past genius level, but now had attention and behavioural issues, and a lot of food allergies suddenly surfaced. Like the rest of my children, this was done on my terms, as I reasoned that the buck stopped with me and I had to deal with any consequences. No one received the whooping cough component — I valued my children and their neurological health and wellbeing too much. A book like “A Shot in the Dark” by HL Coulter should allay anyone’s concerns that I was acting irresponsibly.

Time Moves On

Another young son is born. His father was sure that the biomedical model had all the answers, and as he was also his son, I had to acquiesce, so Josh was vaccinated — again on my terms — when he was about four months old. ‘My terms’ meant no whooping cough vaccine. I would take my chances with that disease should it happen (it hasn’t and all of my children are not ‘protected’ by anything other than their own rude good health and the best deterrent for any illness — a well-working immune system).

I refused to vaccinate when they were teething or if they looked anything other than extremely well. To vaccinate, a strong healthy response is required. If a baby /child is sick when vaccinated, the normal immune response is not there so anything could happen instead — all adults knew in times past (when the doctors were not getting financial rewards for their ministrations thus HEALTH and SAFETY were actually the drivers of vaccination), that a sick or recovering from illness child, had to wait until really well again.

I also had studied a herbal course, and my teacher recommended wiping lemon juice on the vaccination site to try to localise the reaction. So I carried a cut lemon in my bag and did this after every injection — this ensured that, should we have a response other than the intended immune one, it could be contained just at the injection site. I also increased Vit C and E supplementation for me (breastfeeding mothers can improve the nutrient load), and both (baby and me) were given Rescue Remedy before and after the actual injection.
This reduced as much as I could, any adverse reaction. This meant that I did not get adverse reactions — either this or I was just lucky, or so I thought.

Complications — A Reason To Need/Be Wary Of Medical Help

Along came the third child, who unfortunately was massively brain injured through an internal toxoplasmotic infection I did not know I carried. It destroyed a lot of her brain leaving her with a terminal and hopeless prognosis.

In the interim she had not died YET there were still the usual push to vaccinate. Both the paediatric neurologist and the paediatrician advised me separately against vaccinating for whooping cough in her case (as if I was going to). I thought this alarming — there the medical profession via the media was imploring everyone to get all vaccination done, yet here two specialists were personally advising against it — and why bother? What was left of her brain to damage (as that whopping cough component was creating a 1 in 147 rate of neurological damage: aphasia, fitting, ADHD, frank brain destruction etc).

Up until the high profile football coach, Wayne Bennett came forward with his own family’s drama with vaccination damage (permanent brain trauma and lifelong handicapped family member), the media was full of the dangers of NOT vaccinating, and the improbability of damage through vaccination. Until then, all were assured that if a child was altered/ different after a vaccination, it was going to be so anyway as the brain was too undifferentiated. I kept abreast with this debate as it was pertinent to me both professionally as a healer, and also as a mother — I had refused vaccination for the reasons above still.

There was the option of homeopathic vaccination, yet I decided that IF and only IF one of the diseases afflicted my children I would be able with my own knowledge and skills and with my network of supporting therapist acquaintances to be able to naturally assist where needed. The fear that drives most other parents who have no awareness or access of true health care and all the other choices available, was not online for me.

Kathryn was subjected to the same regime I had devised for her brother. No whooping cough (too dangerous) and only Diphtheria, Polio and Tetanus. When she was of the age where the MMR was recommended, she was too unwell and needing to stabilise as a sleeping, eating and particularly poohing toddler — too hard to introduce anything else that may imbalance her further.

When she was as well as she had ever been, at 4 ½ years old, I did get the MMR done. I had no idea of the mercury problem back then. She nearly died; the next 18 months were all about trying to keep her alive and then return her to the weight she had been at the beginning of this. She was hospitalised for a strep throat that turned into a cardiac issue and then Golden Staph visited us also.

I had her discharged after a week, when I was well enough (maternal exhaustion tends to allow a breeding ground for opportunistic nasties), to take her home, she had to be carried all night as she screamed if put down as she was terrified of whatever was in her reality, though not physically present. After 18 months, most of her hair was still missing and she was still vastly underweight, but at least she was not as psychotic. This was a constant in her early life and hence sleep was not a habit in my or her life, and was not tied into the vaccination issue, but the massive autism and general debility that was her, and my, life.

Time passed.

Another Son was Born

This time, as a single parent I did not need to mediate between what I knew to be real and the dad’s probable uninformed and fearful reactions to all the media hype. My son was fully breastfed until about 8 months, and when he was introduced to solids, again it was non-dairy, gluten or sugar, or processed foods. He was on warm, not out of the fridge everything — unlike the children who were at the child care establishment he visited a few days a week.

What difference does this make? All in the difference on the world. It is not just WHAT gets fed to a person, but the temperature at which it is introduced into the body — as our inner food factory has to heat all ingredients to body temperature before digestion starts. The cold, chilled and sometimes even raw foods and fluids, waste the digestive strength that, when a bit young or ill, are not strong to begin with. See http://simplenaturalsolutions.co.nz/what-makes-us-ill/

At the child care centre, the children were always sick with something. Ryan was NEVER ill. The other children always seemed to have a runny nose, or were sickening with rashes, gut problems and were generally coughing and spluttering. I supposed he did not catch their stuff as he was not vaccinated, so his body worked well at preventing illness, plus he was given some vitamins for this very purpose — to build up immunity — and I did not feed him that which would weaken his body. There was nothing irresponsible about my refusing vaccinations — I was ensuring all my kids were well as possible, not just being hopeful, but feeding only what was not allergenic (as most of us should not be eating any of what I refused to give them).

As a natural therapist, I spent all my professional life trying to get people off these foods to allow their bodies to heal, so I was not silly enough to weaken my own children — as then I would have to fix them, better not break them to start with!

Over the years, Ryan’s dad refused vaccination whenever offered. He would say that if the vaccinating doctor would sign something to be held personally responsible if anything untoward happened through the vaccination process they would be personally culpable — he would not allow it to happen to his son. No one took him up on this.

I eventually got him vaccinated against tetanus and diphtheria when he was 13 YEARS old and did the polio a year later. That is all.
This does dovetail into another subject . . . .

Mercury — The Deadly Preservative

Whatever you may have heard — ‘studies’ saying this and that — the few parents whose lives become altered through allowing ‘poisonous’ injections in their children and damaging them, all have stories that directly link their previously totally normal, baby/ toddler to SOMETHING happening as a result of the vaccination. Some ‘experts’ totally dispute the presence of mercury (deadly neuro-toxin used as a preservative in the vaccines), as being to blame. The parents who THINK that it was the vaccination can’t all be imaging that their perfect child overnight became a stranger . . . or worse. A whole new world will open up if you start researching this topic.

I needed to know what to do to further help my daughter as she was not dying. She was actually in great shape as I had spent all of her life trying to improve her functioning.

As part of this, I had been one of those mothers who had teams of people coming in all times or the day and night working with her. A neurological rehabilitation programme designed to get the dormant brain cells firing, through stimulation of intensity, duration and frequency, meant at least 50 extra people were in my week. It seemed that many of these people knew of someone who directly in their family, or indirectly through neighbours or workmates, had a child who had been negatively affected by vaccination.

I did not need to ask about this — Kathryn’s brain injury was right out there — very topical for all. We were all trying to help her get back together again. One woman’s niece was brain injured through the triple antigen (was the only injection ever mentioned, as back then the MMR was only just starting up). Another had a neighbour whose twin girls were both fitting uncontrollably (and forever after, massively brain injured), before she got them home after their injections — enough horror stores to put paid to the common myth that vaccination was safe.

When I then went to a doctor’s surgery that offered informed choice — and when I borrowed the book, “A Shot in the Dark”, I felt very sorry for all those who had not thought to question what was being put into their children’s bodies. Had I not had an anaphylactic sister (egg white) and a highly allergic husband (extreme eczema and asthma), possibly my son would also have been in those statistics.

I then started looking for other books to help other parents at least be aware. If your child is the one damaged, there is a long time to regret having only listened to only one side of the story/trusting that you are safe following blindly where all others are being lead.

KEY POINTS